


The Department

by poppunkpadfoot (StormVandal)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Sirius Black, Child Abuse, Community: HPFT, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6986770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormVandal/pseuds/poppunkpadfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When tragedy strikes in Sirius Black's life, he decides some changes need to be made - not in his life, but in the Ministry of Magic. He may be just a rookie Auror, but he's certainly persistent, and he's not afraid to make waves.</p><p>Thus, the Department of Child Welfare is born.</p><p>  <em>Third place in StarFeather's Auror's Tale Challenge - Season 2 on HPFT<br/>First place in StarFeather's Auror's Tale Challenge - Season 3 on HPFT</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Sirius’ life gets turned upside-down on what would otherwise have been a perfectly ordinary Wednesday.  
  
He’s sitting at his desk in the Auror office, sorting through paperwork. As usual, the office is a whirlwind of activity. Memos fly around overhead, searching for their intended recipients. Some Aurors are sitting at their desks, busily writing up reports or recording intel; others are talking, comparing notes and strategizing. There are also some empty cubicles, their occupants out gathering intel or making arrests.  
  
He can’t see all this happening, of course – for the most part, he can only see the walls of his own cubicle, which are papered with wanted posters, pictures of motorbikes, and a few photos of the other Marauders. But he can hear it, all the hustle and bustle, and he can see it in his mind’s eye. It’s like this almost every day, after all, unless something really big goes down. Despite the danger, he looks forward to those days – they’re the only time he’s sent out into the field, and even then it’s not a guarantee.  
  
He’s not really bitter about it – he knows he’s already doing more than he would be under normal circumstances. He’s not even two years out of Hogwarts and he’s working as a rookie Auror – that’s hardly something to be bitter about.  
  
Auror training is supposed to take three years, but due to the present climate – that is, due to the fact that Voldemort and his cronies are murdering people left and right and threatening the safety of the Wizarding World – the decision had been made to temporarily switch to a year-long intensive program, after which rookies are allowed to take on some low-risk duties while continuing to attend training sessions several times a week. “Low-risk duties”, unsurprisingly, translates to “desk work”. For the most part, Sirius’ job is to go through the field reports of more senior Aurors, searching for connections and red flags before filing the paperwork away. The most action he gets in an average week comes when he has to walk to the other side of the office to fact-check something with the Auror whose report he’s looking over.  
  
He finally finishes going over Auror Fawley’s report on the arrests he made yesterday, and he pushes it aside with a small sigh. Fawley’s handwriting is always so small, and… and scribbly. It’s always such a pain in the ass to decipher. He pushes his chair out from his desk and gets to his feet, picking up the report, which now needs to be filed.  
  
“Prongs,” he says, poking his head over the divider that separates his cubicle from his best friend’s behind him. “I’m going over to the filing cabinets – need anything put away?”  
  
James doesn’t even look up from the report he’s working on; judging by the ink smudged all over his hands and the numerous circled phrases on the parchment, he’s stumbled across some kind of significant connection to another case. He shakes his head briefly and circles something else. Sirius pouts for a moment, wishing James would at least look up, but leaves him to it and heads off to the other side of the room.  
  
It only takes him a few moments to find Fawley’s drawer and file the report. He goes to the sink to grab a glass of water before heading back to his cubicle, knowing that there’ll most likely be another report waiting for him when he gets there.  
  
Sure enough, there’s another piece of parchment already on his desk; it is not, however, a case report. The word “Intel” is stamped across the top in red ink, and the notes on the parchment are scribbled down in point form; this is a record of an Auror’s meeting with an informant. Sirius’ job is to record any pertinent information – plans, new Death Eaters, new targets – in the big black binder that’s kept on his desk. All the Aurors have matching binders, and they’re kept magically updated – when one Auror writes in new information, it appears in the binders of all the other Aurors.  
  
He pulls his binder towards him, dips his quill in his inkwell, and starts going through the report. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy in it – _still no plans to attack the Ministry_ is the first bullet point, and it’s followed by the names of a few newly-recruited Death Eaters. He’s not sure, but he thinks he recognizes a few names from Hogwarts.  
  
It’s not long before his mind starts to wander; he’s only half paying attention as he adds names to the list of known and suspected Death Eaters in the binder. He’s thinking about what he’s going to pick up for tea that evening and writing the name “Raphael Yaxley” on the list when the next bullet point makes his heart stop in his chest.  
  
_Regulus Black is missing, presumed dead._  
  
He’s only vaguely aware that he’s dropped his quill, barely registers when it clatters onto the desk and splatters ink onto the report. His breathing is impossibly loud in his ears, and all he can do is stare at the words in front of him.  
  
_Regulus Black is missing, presumed dead._  
  
“You’ll never guess what I just – Padfoot?” James’ voice sounds very far away, but Sirius still catches the abrupt change in his tone, from smug to startled. “What’s wrong?”  
  
Sirius doesn’t answer. He suddenly notices that his hands are trembling violently; he grips the armrests of his chair so tightly that his knuckles go white, and he tries to even out his breathing, slow it down. In. Out. In. Out. _Regulus is dead. Regulus is dead._  
  
“Sirius?” James’ hand comes down on his shoulder, and that snaps him out of it; he practically bolts to his feet, sending his chair crashing to the ground in the process, and, ignoring James’ exclamation of shock, snatches the report off his desk.  
  
_A. Merit Viola_ is the name scrawled at the top. He rushes out of his cubicle, steadfastly ignoring James’ attempts to stop him; all he can think is that he needs to talk to Auror Viola, needs to hear it for himself.  
  
Luckily, she’s in her cubicle when he gets there, sipping a cup of tea and looking through one of her case files. She looks up, clearly startled, when Sirius storms in, but he doesn’t give her a chance to speak before he’s shoving the report in her face.  
  
“Is this accurate?”  
  
“I… what?” Viola blinks at him, her dark eyebrows drawing together.  
  
“Sirius! What is going on?!” James has chased after him; he grabs him by the elbow, but Sirius shakes him off.  
  
“Is this accurate?!” he repeats, shaking the parchment a little. “This report, is it accurate?”  
  
“Of course it’s accurate.” A frown has appeared on Viola’s face now, and she takes the parchment out of his hand. “This is the intel report I sent out for filing? Is there a problem, Mr.… Black, isn’t it?”  
  
“That’s what I’d like to know,” James interjects. Sirius finally looks at him, only to realize that half the office is watching him; heads are poking around cubicle walls, and a few people have stopped in their tracks to gawk. “You were yelling,” James says quietly in answer to Sirius’ unasked question. “What’s wrong?”  
  
Sirius looks back at Viola, and wonders briefly if she can see desperation on his face the way he can see confusion on hers. “Have you used this source before? You trust him? His information is sound?”  
  
“Yes on all three counts.” Viola is starting to sound impatient. “What is this about, Mr. Black? Did you notice an inconsistency…?”  
  
He’s shaking again. She needs to tell him it’s not true, or at least that it could be a mistake. She and James are both staring at him expectantly, but his throat has closed up; he barely manages to choke out the words, “My brother.”  
  
“Your…?” Viola looks back down at the parchment, and Sirius watches as her eyes go wide with recognition. “Oh, Merlin,” she says under her breath, and when she looks back up at him, sympathy has replaced the impatience in her features. “Mr. Black – Sirius – I’m so sorry, this report should not have gone to you-”  
  
“ _What is going on?!_ ” James exclaims, pushing his hands through his hair in frustration. “Is someone going to fill me in, or do I just have to guess?”  
  
The spectators seem to have lost interest now; most of them have gone back to work, and the few who remain have started to awkwardly sidle away. Sirius waits until no one is left besides James and Viola before he speaks.  
  
“Regulus is dead.” It’s as much a question posed to Viola as it is an explanation for James, and her slow nod of confirmation sends his heart plummeting into his stomach.  
  
“More than likely,” she says. “Almost certainly. I mean, no one’s found a body – not us, not the Death Eaters – but apparently You-Know-Who confirmed it himself to his inner circle. I’m sorry.”  
  
James curses quietly next to him. “Padfoot-”  
  
“What happened?” Sirius says over him. He needs to know, he needs to _understand_ , he wants to know _why_. “Who was it?”  
  
“The word is that it was You-Know-Who himself.” She levels her gaze at him, but he can’t take the look of pity in her eyes for longer than a few moments before he has to look away. “He was trying to run.”  
  
And just like that, everything comes crashing down.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Marauders attend an Order meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been almost a year since I posted chapter one of this story, and I finally have a new chapter written! I'm really hoping updates will be more forthcoming from now on - this story is my JulNo project, and also my biggest writing priority by far.
> 
> Let me know what you think! :D

“Sirius…? Padfoot? Can you hear me…?”

 

Remus’s voice sounds very far away. Sirius almost thinks he’s imagining it for a moment; but he blinks a few times and Remus comes into focus, kneeling in front of him and looking at him with that fake-calm Remus expression on his face, the one he makes when he’s anxious or angry and trying to pretend he’s not, where he looks almost exactly like real-calm Remus except his lips are pressed tightly together.

 

“You there?” he prompts, and Sirius realizes that he’s sitting there staring at him wordlessly. Remus is wearing his fake-calm Mooney-mask because of him. (He often is, but that’s beside the point.) He blinks a few more times, licks his lips - his mouth seems to be very dry - and says the first thing that comes to mind.

 

“How was work?”

 

As soon as it registers what he’d said, he has the urge to laugh. Remus seems to find the question similarly amusing, as his mouth twitches up at the corners. To his credit, though, he doesn’t call it out, just answers.

 

“It was fine,” he says, lifting Sirius’s hand and brushing his lips lightly against the knuckles. “We got a new shipment in, so I was really just stocking the shelves most of the day.”

 

Sirius nods dumbly. Any other day he’d probably be thinking in exasperation about how bloody stubborn and prideful his boyfriend is, insisting on working at a Muggle bookstore to “contribute to the household” even though he knows perfectly well that they could both live comfortably off of Sirius’s inheritance for the rest of their lives. But his brain seems to be filled with television static, and he’s having a difficult time concentrating enough to even formulate a response beyond a hum of acknowledgement.

 

“James told me what happened,” Remus says hesitantly, his thumb gently stroking the back of Sirius’s hand. Sirius frowns, his eyes roaming around the room. James… James had been here. James had brought him home from work. When had he left?

 

Remus, sensing his confusion, gives him a reassuring smile. “He stayed with you until I got home. He wanted to stay longer, but there’s an Order meeting tonight and I told him he’d better go to it. But he said he’d come right back when it’s over.”

 

Sirius takes a moment to process that, but the second he does, he sits bolt upright. “Fuck, the Order meeting. We’re going to be late.”

 

“You… you want to go?” Remus frowns.

 

“I mean… yeah? We’re Order members, we’re supposed to go to the meetings.” Even as he says it, he makes no move to get off the couch. His brain, mouth, and limbs don’t seem to be functioning at the same speed.

 

“You’ve had a hard day, Padfoot.” Remus’s voice is still so soft. It’s almost starting to grate on him. “We can miss this one meeting. Dumbledore will understand.”

 

“I’m  _ fine. _ ”

 

It doesn’t come out as forcefully as he might have liked, and one of Remus’s eyebrows shoots up his forehead. It’s really starting to sink in how worried he looks, and Sirius bites his lip, feeling a little guilty. He didn’t mean to worry Remus, or James for that matter.

 

“I just got home to find you on the couch staring into space,” Remus says skeptically. “James had to bring you home from work. You can miss this one meeting. No one’s expecting you to be okay, and you don’t have to pretend to be.”

 

Sirius knows he means well, he really does. But the itching under his skin is intensifying. Now that he’s back to reality, he doesn’t think he can stand to just  _ be _ here, not doing anything. He wants to go out, he wants to be helpful. So, as much as he hates the worried look on Remus’s face, and as much as he doesn’t want to worry him further, he’s going to the Order meeting.

 

He abruptly stands up, sending Remus toppling backwards ono the floor in surprise. He still feels a little strange, like his brain’s not quite connected to his body, but he pays no mind to that, just goes to get his cloak.

 

Remus pulls himself to his feet and follows him into the hallway, a look of resignation on his face. “We’re going to the meeting, aren’t we?”

 

“Yes,” Sirius confirms, looking at him challengingly.

 

He’s expecting Remus to continue arguing, but instead he just sighs and reaches for his own cloak.

 

“Fine. But if you change your mind, we can leave. Okay?”

 

“Okay,” Sirius echoes. “Hurry up. We’re late.”

 

***

 

Their safe Apparition point is in the alleyway beside their apartment, so it’s only a few minutes before they’re standing in front of this week’s safe house: Cardorac Dearborn’s cottage on the outskirts of Kent. Remus mumbles an incantation at the gate, allowing himself and Sirius to pass through the host of protective charms around the building.

 

The meeting is already underway when they enter, although just barely, as far as Sirius can tell. The room falls silent the second the door opens; a few people even whip out their wands. After the attack on Benjy’s house a few weeks ago - where they’d held an Order meeting two weeks before - everyone’s on edge, and even after the wands are put away, a few people still look tense.

 

Dumbledore, sitting at the head of the table, looks entirely unperturbed. “Ah,” he says amiably. “Mr Black, Mr Lupin. Glad you could join us. Please, have a seat.”

 

James is already sandwiched between Fabian Prewett and Benjy, and he’s not hiding his surprise well. His mouth, which had dropped open when they’d walked into the room, finally snaps closed when Dumbledore speaks, and he looks from Sirius to Remus with a rather accusatory expression on his face. Remus shrugs helplessly at him; Sirius looks down at the floor, a little sullenly. He doesn’t need to be  _ babied _ .

 

Lily and Peter are seated together across from James, and the chairs next to them are also occupied. In fact, there are only two chairs free, one between Marlene McKinnon and Elphias Doge, and one wedged in at the corner at the opposite end of the table. He and Remus won’t be able to sit together. Thankfully, though, Remus has never particularly liked a fuss, and he sits down without protesting, leaving Sirius to sit beside Marlene.

 

“As I was saying,” Dumbledore continues when they’re all settled in, “Frederic Sudworth was murdered last week while stationed in Knockturn Alley. I remind you all to remain constantly vigilant. Do not assume that you’re safe just because you’re disguised, or in a new spot - or under an Invisibility Cloak,” he adds blithely, and James and Sirius exchange a look. “The Death Eaters are ruthless. I’m sure you all know this. And I’m sure you all also know that they are getting bolder as their organization increases in numbers. If a Death Eater suspects that you are a member of the Order of the Phoenix, chances are good that they will not wait for confirmation.”

 

He stares around the table somberly, but Sirius can’t bring himself to feel too affected. Dumbledore’s words aren’t new to any of them. All of them know the the smallest mistake could get them killed. Frederic had certainly known, and it hadn’t saved him.

 

He must have a funny expression on his face, because Remus shoots him a worried look. He instantly looks away, staring blankly at a burn mark on the table.

 

_ If a Death Eater suspects that you are a member of the Order of the Phoenix, chances are good that they will not wait for confirmation. _

 

Suspicion is enough to get you killed, which begs the question: had Regulus really tried to run? Or had he simply done something suspicious, just the slightest thing wrong, and been killed for it?

 

“Sirius? Sirius!”

 

The room comes sharply back into focus. Peter is staring expectantly at him. Sirius looks cluelessly back; he had completely missed whatever was said, and has no idea what Peter’s waiting for.

 

“Anything to report?” Peter prompts.

 

Oh. Of course. Sirius wracks his brain, trying to think. He doesn’t remember much of what he’d read that morning at work; it has all been swept away by Viola’s report.

 

“Er,” He says.

 

_ Regulus Black is missing, presumed dead. _ The words swim in front of him for a moment, and he feels sick.

 

“No,” he says. “Not today.”

 

***

 

The meeting doesn’t last too long that night, and only an hour and a half after Sirius and Remus had arrived it’s adjourned. Sirius had managed to pay attention for the most part after Peter had snapped him out of it. There’d been reportbacks from everyone, but not very much new information. James had said he had nothing to report, which was confusing, as he’d seemed really excited about something in the office that morning.

 

He gets up from the table along with everyone else and goes to greet Peter, but is stopped in his tracks before he can take more than a few steps by Dumbledore’s voice ringing out over all the noise and chatter in the room.

 

“Sirius, a word please.”

 

He has to hold in a groan. Dumbledore’s probably going to give him a talking to about being distracted during the meeting, and he is so not in the fucking mood. Nevertheless, he waits until the room has mostly cleared, and tries to look respectful instead of annoyed when Dumbledore approaches.

 

“Can I help you with something, Professor?” he asks as evenly as possible.

 

Dumbledore gives him his characteristic piercing look, and he shifts uncomfortably. God, he’d almost forgotten how much he hates that look.

 

“Is everything alright?”

 

“Yes,” he replies stiffly.

 

Dumbledore’s eyes flick to a spot past Sirius’s shoulder, and he raises an eyebrow. Sirius glances back and can’t help but smile a little - James, Peter and Remus hadn’t left the room with everyone else, and are standing near the door, all three of them looking at Dumbledore with wary expressions on their faces. James in particular looks like he’s ready to step in any second. Although Sirius had been irritated with the coddling earlier, he appreciates them staying behind; he’s always found Dumbledore a bit difficult to deal with, and he’s not exactly having a great day.

 

There’s silence for a few moments as Dumbledore regards the other three Marauders, but finally he sighs and directs his gaze back to Sirius.

 

“I suppose there’s no point in insisting your friends leave, as I’m sure you’d simply tell them everything later. Am I correct?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Well then, I won’t waste my energy. Sirius, I would appreciate it if you would tell me what it is that has you so disturbed today.”

 

Another silence. Sirius stares at the floor near Dumbledore’s boots so we won’t have to look him in the eye while he considers. He really doesn’t want to talk about it - but Dumbledore might have information, and he needs information.

 

Finally, he brings his gaze back up to Dumbledore’s face.

 

“My brother is missing,” he says bluntly. “He’s probably dead. Apparently he was trying to leave the Death Eaters.”

 

Dumbledore looks… well, he doesn’t look surprised, but he doesn’t look unsurprised either, and Sirius’s heart sinks in his chest. If Dumbledore had had information, it would’ve saved him a lot of trouble.

 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dumbledore says, his voice sombre.

 

“Yeah,” he replies shortly. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about it?”

 

“I’m afraid not.”

 

“Yeah, thought not.” He doesn’t quite succeed in keeping bitterness out of his tone. “Well, if that’s all you wanted to talk to me about, then I’ll be off now -”

 

“That is not all. I have something to discuss with you.”

 

He sees James move out of the corner of his eye; he’s taken a few steps forward, and is staring at Dumbledore with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

“Alastor approached me with an idea. He pointed out that you have certain skills we may be underutilizing. You are one of, if not the only, members of the Order who was raised in a Dark family; you know the etiquette, the customs, how to behave. You could do invaluable undercover work -”

 

“No,” James says.

 

He strides forward and stands beside Sirius, just slightly in front of him, as though ready to shield him from an attack. Dumbledore just looks at him mildly, and his expression doesn’t falter when Remus steps forward too, backing them both.

 

“You can’t ask that of him,” James says angrily. “You don’t understand -”

 

“I do understand, and I assure you that I do not ask lightly.” Dumbledore’s tone is calm enough that Sirius feels quite sure that he does not, in fact, understand what he’s asking. “We need access to the higher levels of Voldemort’s organization, and this seems to be the least dangerous path. We will lose this war if we cannot start making offensive moves, and soon.”

 

“So you want me to - what? Join the Death Eaters?” Sirius’s voice is low, and he thanks Merlin that he doesn’t sound as fragile as Dumbledore’s proposition has made him feel. “I can’t just… waltz in there and go ‘hey, I was wrong after all, genocide is great and also I’m straight now’ and have them accept me into the fold. I burned those bridges to fucking ash.”

 

“I am not suggesting that you ‘waltz in there’,” Dumbledore says patiently. “When I said undercover, I meant that you would be disguised very carefully. What makes you the ideal candidate is merely that you have the background to make it realistic.”

 

Remus puts a hand on Sirius’s shoulder and squeezes lightly, and Sirius swallows. “Can I get back to you?”

 

“You may.” Dumbledore inclines his head slightly. “Of course. It will be dangerous and you should take some time to consider it.”

 

“Yeah.” Sirius takes a step backward, bumping lightly into Remus. “Okay. See you next week, Professor.”

 

He’s out of the room before Dumbledore has a chance to respond, the others close behind him.

 

“Fuck,” he says when they reach the garden.

 

James is plainly fuming. “Tell him no. I’ll do it if he really needs it done -”

 

“Jamie, no offence, but that wouldn’t work as well and you know it.”

 

James looks like he’s going to argue, but Remus silences him with a look.

 

“Let’s all go home,” he says. “Get some rest. We don’t have to deal with this right now.”

 

Peter nods in agreement. “Getting all worked up about it won’t help. Sirius can just say no anyway.”

 

The group disperses without further discussion beyond a few quick goodnights. Within ten minutes, Sirius and Remus are back in their flat, and they stand aimlessly in the entrance hall for a good long moment before Remus clears his throat.

 

“Do you want anything? Tea? Food? You haven’t eaten -”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“Of course you are,” Remus mutters, and Sirius bites down hard on his tongue to prevent himself from starting an argument that he’ll regret.

 

“I’m going to bed.” His voice is cold, colder than he’d intended, and he tries not to see the hurt on Remus’s face. “See you in the morning.”

 

He’s still awake a few hours later when Remus joins him, but he doesn’t say a word to him. He just shifts further away on the bed, keeps his eyes closed, and pretends.


	3. Chapter 3

Sirius wakes up the next morning in a cold sweat, his breath coming in pants. He sits up, fisting his hands into the sheets, and tries to get ahold of himself, focusing on evening out his breathing until it is slow and steady instead of frantic.

 

He doesn't remember his dream, but he's pretty sure he can guess what it was about.

 

Remus is still sleeping soundly next to him, and he decides almost immediately not to disturb him. He also decides against going back to sleep, because he can't see that going well. So he slips out of bed and out of the room as quietly as possible, and goes through to the kitchen.

 

The clock reads 6:56 AM - earlier than he'd normally get up, but not terrible. He isn't expected at work until 9, but the office opens at 8, so he only has about an hour to kill. He has to stay quiet though; Remus probably won't wake until after he's left, but if he disturbs him and wakes him sooner, Remus will try to talk him out of going to work and there'll probably be a row, and he'd much rather avoid that.

 

He drinks two cups of tea before coming to the conclusion that today is a coffee sort of day. It's already 7:30 (he'd made his tea the Muggle way, to kill some time and also because it's soothing, and then he'd stared into space quite a lot while drinking it), which means his favourite cafe's open already, so he creeps back into the bedroom, gets dressed in black jeans and a t-shirt, shoves his robes into his bag, and heads out the door.

 

La Luna is a tiny cafe just a few blocks away from the entrance to the Ministry. It's not much to look at from the outside, with its slightly grubby walls and a sign in need of a fresh coat of paint, but it has really good coffee and an endearingly kitschy interior. Plus he likes the name. He gets a latte with an extra shot of espresso and sits inside sipping it until his watch says 8:05.

 

He gets some strange looks when he walks into the office - whether because he's approximately 50 minutes earlier than usual or because of the events of yesterday, he can't tell. He just ducks his head and hurries to his cubicle before anyone has a chance to say anything to him. His quill and inkwell are still sitting where he'd left them yesterday; he'd never returned after going to confront Auror Viola. With a sigh, he plonks himself down in his chair, pulls the binder toward him and starts flipping through it absentmindedly; he's early enough that assignments aren't waiting for him on his desk.

 

Regulus's name, he notices, has been added to the binder in the Assumed Dead section. It makes his stomach drop unpleasantly, even though he should've been expecting it. Viola must have done it herself after he left.

 

Luckily, Auror McLoughlin comes along at that moment and hands him a stack of papers before he has a chance to get too worked up. He's never felt so happy about paperwork before in his life, and he's sure he never will again.

 

The stack is fairly significant, both in size and in content - it details the results of a months-long covert operation that McLoughlin has been leading and includes the name of four confirmed new Death Eaters as well as five suspected. He recognizes at least one name from school, a Ravenclaw from two years above him. She'd always been one to extol the virtues of  _hearing the Death Eaters out_ and  _having reasoned debates with them_  and  _not resorting to violence_. Apparently she ended up hearing them loud and clear.

 

He's fairly engrossed, but not so much that he doesn't notice when James walks past his cubicle at 8:49, does an almost-comical double take, and lets out a long-suffering sigh.

 

"Seriously?" he says, and Sirius can't help but crack a smile.

 

"I do everything Siriusly."

 

"Fuck off," James says with equal amounts of affection and exasperation. "What are you doing here? Does Remus know -"

 

"Working, and no."

 

"Oh, come on, Pads, you can take a day or two off."

 

"I know I can, I just don't want to," Sirius says firmly. "Can we please not make a whole big thing out of this?"

 

James openly scrutinizes him for a minute, but finally he relents. "Have it your way, Black. But Remus is going to be all over you for this."

 

"Don't remind me."

 

"What're you working on?"

 

Sirius shifts over slightly, an invitation for James to look over his shoulder. "Operation Blackbird. That mission McLoughlin was heading up."

 

"Tracy Hawthorne," James notes, peering at the parchment. "What a shocker. Didn't she tell you off once for saying your mum could go to hell or something?"

  
Sirius snorts. "Merlin, I forgot about that. ‘ _Just because she has different opinions than you_ -'"

 

"Unbelievable." James shakes his head despairingly. "As though that was the issue."

 

"Hope we end up in a fight with her, we can go ‘Just because I have different opinions than you-' if she tries to hex us."

 

"Merlin." James closes his eyes for a moment, clearly savouring the mental image, before he leans farther over the back of Sirius's chair. "Anything else interesting in there?"

 

Sirius shrugs. "Not particularly. Don't recognize any other names or anything. What about you, got anything interesting?"

 

He's pretty curious about what James had uncovered yesterday, actually; he'd been working on it so intently, and seemed really excited about it. Finding something not only interesting, but exciting in all the paperwork they deal with is not the most common occurrence. Which is why he's surprised when James, instead of enthusiastically launching into an explanation, looks around shiftily and shakes his head.

 

"Nah, just the usual."

 

"But," Sirius begins with a frown; but James shakes his head again, more urgently this time, and Sirius belatedly picks up on the signals James is sending.

 

_Not here. Not right now._

 

So he hurriedly changes tack. "Ah well. Today is a new day."

 

"So it is." James looks over the top of Sirius's cubicle at the clock and curses under his breath. "Alright, I should get to my desk now. Later, Sirius."

 

And he walks off, leaving Sirius to wonder what the hell all that was about.

 

***

 

Happily, his and James's lunch break coincides with Peter's that day, and the three of them decide to go to Diagon Alley for lunch. Both the Auror office and St Mungo's are having a slow day, so they have time; the unspoken rule at both places is that, since employees end up eating one-handed at their desks so often, slow days mean an extra ten minutes for lunch, and they don't have to restrict themselves to pre-made sandwiches from the Ministry cafeteria.

 

They decide against the Leaky Cauldron - it's too crowded when they walk in for any of them to even consider it. Instead they go to a small restaurant down one of the side-alleys, and talk casually but quietly over their meals.

 

"How's the hospital holding up?" James asks Peter. "How're  _you_  holding up?"

 

Peter shrugs. He doesn't look stricken the way he sometimes does when asked that question, which is a good sign.

 

"We're coping. Since there hasn't been a major event in a while, we've had some time to get caught up in the Infectious Diseases and Spell Damage wards. What about you lot, anything going on that hasn't been reported at an Order meeting yet?"

 

"Nah," James says casually, and Sirius can't help but squint at him a little. Every time he forgets how curious he is, James reminds him somehow. He's starting to wonder if it's intentional.

 

Neither of them ask about Regulus, or about how he's doing, and he's grateful.

 

After lunch, James is accosted on his way back into the office by Mad-Eye Moody, who says there's a report on his desk that needs a second pair of eyes (which is quite possibly code for "I want another Order member to look at this and you're the first one I saw", but Sirius doesn't pry). He heads back to his desk alone.

 

Or, he starts to. Then he sees Viola walking back to her desk from the kitchenette, a cup of tea in one hand and several rolls of parchment in the other, and makes an impulse decision to follow her.

 

She hadn't given him enough information. All she'd said was that she trusted the source. That isn't good enough when the intel in question is  _this_. Her source could be lying, or just mistaken, and she wouldn't have thought to press for more details because she doesn't know or care who Regulus is. (Was? Fuck.) He should be allowed to talk to the source and find out what they know for himself.

 

She settles down at her desk, taking a sip of tea and unrolling one of the scrolls, but before she has a chance to get too comfortable or engrossed, he raps on the edge of her cubicle.

 

"Can I have a word?"

 

Surprise is obvious on her face when she looks up, and she hurriedly sets the scroll back down on her desk, rolling it back up with a tap of her wand. "Mr Black. I didn't think you'd be in today."

 

"Yeah, well, I'm full of surprises."

  
She doesn't laugh, or even smile. She doesn't look angry either though. If anything, she looks kind of... embarrassed.

 

"Well. I'm glad you're here. I wanted to apologize again for what happened yesterday. It was entirely my fault. I admit, I didn't make the connection. If I had, I would have been more careful when sending it the case out for filing, and found a more appropriate way for you to be informed."

 

"It's alright," he shrugs. "I wouldn't expect you to make the connection. I'm not here for an apology."

 

"Right. Let me guess. You're here for my source."

 

That brings him up short. Although he supposes he shouldn't be surprised; she is an Auror, after all, and quite high up at that. "Er. Well. Yeah."

 

"I know you know I'm not allowed to reveal their identity."

 

"To the press or an outsider, maybe."

 

"I'm not allowed to give out sources to other Aurors either, unless I'm bringing them onto a relevant case or they're a superior."

 

"So bring me onto the case, I'm an Auror -"

 

"A rookie," she corrects him. "You're a rookie. I wouldn't be allowed to bring you onto the case even if there were one, which there isn't. This -" She indicates her report, which Sirius belatedly realizes is sitting in front of her on her desk. "-isn't a case, it's intel. There's no case to be found in what my source did tell me."

  
For a moment, they just sort of stare at each other, as though one of them might convince the other through the sheer force of their gaze to come over to their point of view. Finally, she sighs heavily.

 

"Listen," she says. "I empathize, I really do. And I'm not doing this because I'm some sort of stickler for rules. If there was something else I could do to help, I probably would. Hell, if the source were someone different I might even give you their name. But I can't in good conscience give you what you want."

 

"But what if they were wrong?" Sirius asks hotly. "Or just lying? I just want to see what they really know."

 

But before she can answer, someone clears their throat behind him.

 

"Mr Black," says Auror Gorham. "A word, if you please. In my office."

 

"Ah, shit," Sirius mutters under his breath, before slowly turning to face the head of the office.

 

Gorham looks at him meaningfully, and jerks his head towards his office door. "Now."

 

Trying to convince himself that his feeling of impending doom is just his subconscious being melodramatic, Sirius follows Gorham into his office and shuts the door behind him.

 

"It's not acceptable for you to harass your co-workers for information," says Gorham, who has apparently decided to go the absolutely-no-bullshit route. It's always a bit of a toss-up as to whether you're going to be dealing with no-bullshit Gorham or all-bullshit Gorham - the unspoken consensus is that it pretty much depends how much he'd had to drink the night before. Sirius personally can't make his mind up about which version he prefers dealing with - he finds each of them disconcerting in ways he can't quite put his finger on.

 

"I know you know that," Gorham continues, " And I have better things to do with my time today than give you a disciplinary lecture or listen to an apology that you don't mean, so instead I'd just like to remind you that bereavement leave is available to you. And frankly, I suggest you use it."

 

Sirius blinks at him, completely thrown. He'd definitely been expecting more of a scolding. "And when you say ‘suggest', do you mean I can either take bereavement leave voluntarily or you'll suspend me?" he asks, perhaps somewhat boldly. He'd almost rather take the suspension; he doesn't need bereavement leave, dammit, he is not  _bereaved_.

 

But Gorham shakes his head. "No. I mean I'm suggesting. You haven't given me cause to suspend you yet, but if you keep up this behaviour, I might have to. So I suggest that you take a few days to get your shit together, and come back when your emotions are sufficiently under control and you can behave in a professional manner again."

 

That doesn't sound too far off from what Sirius had just said, in his opinion, but he doesn't argue; he's feeling told-off enough as it is. But he's still not going to use his bereavement leave.

 

"I'm fine," he insists. "It won't happen again."

 

"Whatever," Gorham sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "If you won't take time off, then get back to work already. The last thing we need around here is a backlog of paperwork."

 

"Yes sir," Sirius grumbles, and gets the hell out of there before Gorham can get any more lecturing in.

 

He's somewhat distracted all afternoon, but he still lingers a bit longer at his desk than he normally would. Finally, James raps on the wall of his cubicle and raises his eyebrows at him.

 

"You know what time it is, yeah?"

 

"Er... yeah," he replies vaguely. "Just... wrapping something up."

 

"Right." James draws the word out a little in that way that means ‘I definitely don't believe you'. "And then you're going home?"

 

"I mean, yeah, maybe. I might... go get a drink or something, I dunno."

 

"Avoiding Remus isn't going to help anything, you know."

 

He doesn't bother to deny it. He looks away from James and back at the binder. "You're here late too, find something interesting?"

 

"Not today," James says evasively. "But listen, did you want to come over for dinner tomorrow? Remus too, I was hoping you'd pass on the invitation to him for me. Pete's already said yes."

 

"Er, sure. You heading out then?"

 

"Yeah. You should too. Seriously."

 

Sirius waves a dismissive hand at him. "Will do. See you tomorrow, Prongs."

 

He stays a little while longer, but eventually he gets too hungry to keep doing paperwork. Only then does he pack up for the night and go home.

 

When he walks into their flat, Remus is sitting at the kitchen table with what seems to be a mug of hot cocoa, looking undeniably worried, and Sirius feels a pang of guilt. Remus hasn't actually done anything wrong; he's just quite a big fan of Talking About It, and Sirius really doesn't want to do that in this case.

 

He busies himself in the fridge, rummaging around for something to eat that'll involve minimal preparation, and finally just pulls out a jar of peanut butter and gets a spoon out of the drawer. Peanut butter out of the jar is totally a valid dinner choice.

 

"How was work?" Remus asks, in that measured tone he uses when he's annoyed and trying not to show it, and which Sirius pretty much hates.

 

"Fine," he answers shortly. "We're invited to James and Lily's for dinner tomorrow night."

 

"Okay."

 

There's a long silence, broken only by the sounds of Sirius eating. He avoids Remus's eyes; he can tell he's going to say some stuff he'll regret if they don't move on to some kind of safe topic soon.

 

"So," Remus says after a while. "You left really early this morning, did something urgent come up?"

 

Sirius involuntarily grits his teeth a little. "No, I just woke up early and figured I might as well get an early start. Are you going to interrogate me about my whole day?"

 

Remus's eyebrows shoot up his forehead. "I just wanted to make sure everything's okay."

 

"Everything's completely fine, and if I felt like talking about it, I would. Okay?" Sirius snaps. He feels bad almost immediately, as he watches hurt take over Remus's features before his face closes off entirely.

 

"Fine," he says tightly, his mouth a thin line. "Sorry I bothered you. I'll just leave you alone."

 

He snatches up his mug and walks out of the room, in a far less melodramatic manner than Sirius would have if the roles were reversed. Sirius feels another pang of guilt, but doesn't go after him. He eats a few more spoonfuls of peanut butter before shoving it moodily back into the fridge.

 

He's suddenly very tired. His late night and early morning have caught up to him, and since Remus is in the living room, he decides he might as well just go to bed early.

 

Despite his exhaustion, he tosses and turns for a while. His head sort of hurts, and he can't stop thinking about his conversation with Viola earlier. She had seemed sympathetic; he'd even said she would have given him the name if it had been a different source. There has to be a way he can get her to help him out.

 

Finally, after almost an hour, he falls asleep. His last thoughts are about strategy. He needs to find that source.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully this was alright, lmk what you thought! thanks for reading! (and thanks to sian (nott theodore @ hpft) for beta reading this for me!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hallways in number twelve Grimmauld Place have always been deeply unsettling, simultaneously cavernous and claustrophobic, echoey and creaky and always holding threats...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I'm working on chapter 5 right now. Hopefully it won't be as long a wait this time, but I'm kind of shitty at writing long stories, as it turns out, so we'll see what happens :P
> 
> Enjoy!

The hallways in number twelve Grimmauld Place have always been deeply unsettling, simultaneously cavernous and claustrophobic, echoey and creaky and always holding threats. Walburga Black’s shrieks carry up the stairs, raising the hairs on Sirius’s neck and making him want to run and hide. Thankfully, he sees his bedroom door up ahead; he walks quickly over, slams the door behind him, and sinks back against it. 

What’s she mad about now? It can’t be something he did, can it? He wracks his brain for a minute, but he can’t remember anything, and eventually he decides it’s not worth worrying about.

Her shrieks, mercifully, fade out after a while, and the house goes silent. Eerily silent. Normally, even in the absence of yelling, there are sounds that carry through the house; but now it’s as though he’s underwater or something. All he can hear is his own blood rushing in his ears. 

He frowns and opens the door again. Something’s not right.

The hallway is empty, and all the lights are flickering. With a growing sense of unease, he walks towards the stairs, but before he reaches them, he is stopped in his tracks.

Regulus’s door is open, and his brother is standing in front of him.

There’s water pouring from his empty eye sockets - not tears, delicate and singular on his pale cheeks, but steady gushing blackness that is pooling on the floor around his feet. He is expressionless; his lips are blue. He stands there, motionless, silent - a ghost, out of reach. 

Without thinking, Sirius finds himself reaching out. “Regulus,” he says, his voice strangled. “It’s me-” 

At the sound of his voice, Regulus’s face contorts. Whether it’s rage or pain, Sirius can’t tell, but it feels like knives in his gut.

“Fuck you,” Regulus spits out.

He’s moving closer, or maybe Sirius is moving closer to him; he’s so close Sirius could touch him, but he stands frozen, transfixed in horror, staring as water begins dripping from Regulus’s mouth as well.

“Regulus -” he repeats helplessly.

“How could you leave me here?!”

“I’m sorry,” Sirius chokes out, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to -” but Regulus doesn’t seem to hear him. 

“You left me alone with her.” There’s so much pain in his voice that Sirius can feel it flooding over him in waves. “How _could_ you?” 

He doesn’t wait for a response. Without another word, he turns on his heel and disappears.

***

Sirius jolts awake, panting, his entire body covered in a sheen of cold sweat. He curls onto his side, clamps his mouth shut and tries to fight back the wave of nausea threatening to overtake him.

_How could you leave me here?_

It takes him ten minutes to calm down enough to be able to breathe properly, and to be sure he’s not going to throw up. He rolls back onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, trying to drive the image of Regulus’s empty eyes out of his mind.

It’s another few minutes before he realizes that Remus isn’t in bed next to him.

That makes him feel even worse. Remus must be sleeping on the couch. He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling hollowed out. He almost wants to get out of bed and go wake Remus up, but he’s not going to let himself. Rems doesn’t need that from him, and he doesn’t need any help. He’s fine. He’s _fine._ He doesn’t need any cuddles or reassurances or whatever.

It’s 2:41 AM.

With a groan of frustration, he pulls his pillow over his face. So much for a good night’s sleep.

It’s two and half hours before he manages to get back to sleep, and it feels like as soon as he finally does, his alarm is going off. He gets ready for work in a fog, and leaves without saying goodbye to - or even seeing - Remus.

After several cups of tea, he feels somewhat better. He greets James vaguely when he shows up, pretending to be far more absorbed in paperwork than he actually is in order to avoid a full-blown conversation. 

It’s almost lunch time when Auror Viola shows up at his cubicle.

“Mr Black. Do you have a minute?” she asks smoothly, and doesn’t wait for a reply before conjuring up a chair and sitting down beside him. She pulls a scroll out from her robes and lays it on his desk. “There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

“Finally decided to give up your source?” he asks, only half joking. 

“Dream on,” she replies instantly. “But I do have some information for you. Hear me out, alright?”

Interest piqued, Sirius agrees, and watches as she unrolls her scroll.

“I went through some of my old reports,” she explains, gesturing at the parchment. The words there don’t make much sense to him - it’s a confusing jumble of names, dates, and locations - but she doesn’t seem to expect him to read or understand it. “I looked at all the intel I could find from this particular source, dating back about a year, and cross-checked it with corresponding cases. This person has consistently given us good information. There’s never been any sort of major discrepancy.” 

He should probably be upset, or annoyed that she’s still not budging, but instead he’s mostly just feeling pleasantly surprised, and rather touched. There’s a lot of names and dates on this list - she must have spent a good amount of time on this.

“I know you probably still want their name, but given that I can’t do that, I was hoping this might help. It’s not closure, but I at least want to reassure you that you haven’t been given false information, and that you’re not going through this because of a misreport.”

He’s kind of starting to feel bad for ever being angry with her. She sounds as genuinely sympathetic as she has since he first approached her, and she went to all this trouble. 

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. “I really appreciate this. I mean, I’m going to be honest with you, I still want the name -”

“I figured as much,” she interrupts drily.

“-But I really do appreciate all this effort. I mean, you’re a real Auror, you have other stuff to worry about, you didn’t have to do all of this.”

“I know. But I wanted to.” She rubs a hand over her eyes and sighs. “I’m responsible for the way you found out, and I can’t blame you for wanting to know more. I know what it’s like to not get closure. It’s horrible, and the worst part is the uncertainty.”

Somehow, he manages to resist the urge to ask her about that. He’s curious, but most Aurors don’t like to discuss personal matters, especially not with some rookie at the drop of a hat, and he definitely doesn’t want to sour her against him now. So he just nods and does his best to show sympathy on his face. 

Viola rolls the scroll back up and stands, Vanishing her chair with one quick flick of her wand. “I’ll let you get back to work. I hope this was at least a little helpful.”

As soon as she’s gone, Sirius grabs a piece of scrap parchment and starts scribbling down as many names and dates as he can remember. If Viola won’t give up her source, he’ll just have to find them himself. 

***

He doesn’t really make much progress that day - he gets flooded with new files after lunch, and still has an untouched pile on his desk when his shift ends, which he’ll have to get back to in the morning. 

He pops his head over the top of James’s cubicle. James looks similarly swamped; his hair is even messier than usual, and there’s notes strewn across his desk. He looks stressed, but he still grins when he looks up.

“Hey. Did you just get hit with a shitload of work too?”

“Yup. What was up with that?” Sirius groans.

“From the paperwork I was doing, it seemed like there were a couple of raids today.”

“Ah. My guess was just that the Aurors are out to get us.”

James snorts. “That’s probably it, yeah. You still coming over tonight?”

“‘Course. You ready to go? I can wait around for a bit if you need to wrap anything up first.”

To Sirius’s confusion, James looks taken aback by that. “Oh - you’re coming over now?”

“I mean… I was planning on it. Is that not okay?”

“No, it’s fine. I was just expecting you to go home first, is all."

Sirius shrugs. He’d left the house that morning planning to go straight to James’s, and had therefore dressed appropriately and brought a bottle of Firewhiskey (shrunken and wrapped in a scarf) in his bag. “I can if you want me to, but I don’t need to change or anything.”

For a second, James kind of eyes him suspiciously, but he shrugs as well. “Sure, come now. Is Moony coming too?”

“As far as I know.”

“Excellent.” James stands and stretches. “Well, let’s go then. I’m done for the day." 

They’re at James and Lily’s place within fifteen minutes, and Sirius pretty much immediately make himself at home, flopping down onto the couch and flinging his feet up onto the coffee table. James snorts, but doesn’t comment, just heads into the kitchen. 

“Lily not home yet?” Sirius calls after him.

“She’ll probably be another half hour. The Guild usually keeps her sort of late. You want something to drink?”

“Please.”

That reminds him about the Firewhiskey. He pulls it out of his bag and returns it to its normal size, and when James walks in with two Butterbeers, he brandishes it at him. “Brought you something.”

James lets out an exaggerated gasp. “Oh, Padfoot, you shouldn’t have!”

“Ah, but I did. You’re welcome.”

“Well,” James says, handing him one of the Butterbeers, “Let’s save that for after dinner, shall we? Need to be sober to cook. Well, not strictly speaking, but my sober cooking does tend to be more consistent, and involves far fewer experimental flavour profiles.”

Sirius is moderately disappointed by that pronouncement - it would be nice to be slightly buzzed before Remus shows up - but he doesn’t argue, just accepts the Butterbeer and shifts over to give James more room on the couch.

“Cheers, mate,” he says, and they clink their bottles together before lapsing into a comfortable silence.

Lily arrives before too long, Peter in tow, and Sirius stands to hug them both.

“Lily!” he exclaims exuberantly, smacking a kiss onto her cheek. “My favourite witch! How’s the Guild?”

“Hello, Sirius,” she replies, obviously suppressing laughter. “The Guild is good. How’s the Auror office?”

“Oh, you know. The usual.”

“Desperately boring?”

“Yeah, pretty much. How’s it going, Peter?”

Peter accepts his hug and gives him a clap on the back. “It’s going. Remus here yet?”

“Not yet,” he says casually. “I think he’s coming though.”

James joins them in the hallway, wrapping his arm around Lily’s waist. “Do you two want Butterbeers, or shall we just get started on dinner?”

“Butterbeer,” says Peter, at the exact same moment that Lily says, “Dinner.”

They compromise by moving to the kitchen with their drinks, and watching James rifle through the cupboards. 

“Alright, we can do bangers and mash, biryani, or breakfast for dinner. Preferences?”

“You didn’t choose dinner ahead of time? And here I was thinking this was a formal event,” Lily teases. “I vote breakfast.” 

“Me too,” says Sirius, and Peter nods in agreement.

“Breakfast it is. That was easy. Who’s going to help me cook?”

Peter volunteers, and both Sirius and Lily decide to get out of their way and go back to the living room. They settle down on the couch, and Lily slings her legs over Sirius’s lap. She shakes her hair back out of her face and takes a swig of her drink. “Ugh. Long day. Jimmy Coombs blew up a cauldron full of Shrinking Solution somehow, it was a nightmare to clean up.”

Sirius crinkles his nose up in sympathy. “Yikes. Sounds awful. All I did today was paperwork.”

“So just the usual then.” She bites her lip and gives him a searching look. “But James told me what happened the other day. Are you alright?”

Fuck.

He looks away from her, swallowing, and tries to come up with something to tell her that’ll get her to drop it without worrying her. He can practically feel her eyes boring into him, which definitely doesn’t help. Eventually, the silence gets to be too much, and he just goes with the obvious - and unconvincing.

“Yeah,” he says shortly. “I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. Your brother died. It’s okay if you’re not okay.”

 _Fuck_. He forgets sometimes how good she is at this stuff. Thankfully, he manages to avoid tearing up.

“It is nothing,” he insists. “We hadn’t spoken since I left home. And, I mean, he was a Death Eater.”

“He was also your brother.” Lily rests her hand over his on the sofa, and he can’t help but look back at her. “He grew up under the same pressure you did. And Petunia and I don’t speak, but I’d still be upset if something happened to her.”

For a second, he feels the urge to tell her everything - how guilty he feels, how helpless, how badly he wishes he could go back in time and do something differently. But before he can even open his mouth, there’s a knock on the door, and Lily gives him one last sympathetic smile before getting up to open it.

“Remus!” he hears her say from the hallway. “It’s been too long! How are you?”

With a small sigh, he sinks into the couch cushions and downs some Butterbeer. He really wishes they’d cracked open that Firewhiskey.

***

Thankfully, it’s not too long after Remus arrives that Peter announces breakfast/tea is ready, so he only has to sit awkwardly in the living room with Remus and Lily for about ten minutes, and the two of them spend most of that time catching up anyway, so he doesn’t really have to say anything. At the table, he sits beside James and across from Peter, and tucks right into his food, partially to avoid having to engage in too much small talk and partially because it’s insanely delicious. Peter is so good at making eggs, it’s ridiculous.

He’s mostly thinking about how he doesn’t want to talk about his feelings, so he’s not even considering all the hints James has been dropping over the past few days. It’s not until after dinner, when they’ve finally opened the Firewhiskey, that he remembers. Mostly because James sets down his tumbler on the table in the living room where they’ve all congregated and says, “Not to be dramatic… but I have something to talk to you lot about.” 

“That was very dramatic,” Remus points out. “It was awesome. Please, continue.”

“Thank you, Moony,” James says graciously. “Alright. The other day at work, I was looking at a report and I noticed something odd. I’ve been trying to figure out whether to take it to Gorham or to Dumbledore. Or both, I guess.”

Sirius is instantly on high alert, all thoughts of Regulus completely pushed out of his mind. If James is debating whether or not he should go to their boss with something he found at work, that obviously means he has some reason to believe Gorham can’t be trusted with the information, or that it would be safer to keep an investigation external. He leans forward in his chair and listens intently as James - more solemn now - continues.

“I was filing some paperwork from one of Breckenridge’s cases, and I noticed… well, it was a pretty tiny thing, really. He’s usually really meticulous about details, especially stuff like names and locations. But I noticed in this case report, all of the locations were pretty general. ‘Diagon Alley’, ‘Kent’, stuff like that. At first, I kind of thought nothing of it - figured he’d been in a rush or something - but then I was looking at a report from about a week and a half ago and noticed the same thing. So I pulled a bunch of his other reports to check it out, and I found something _really_ weird.”

He holds a finger up in the universal sign for ‘hold on’ before getting up and slipping out of the room. Sirius groans in frustration, and Peter lets out a plaintive whine, but before either one of them has a chance to complain properly, James returns, clutching a few pieces of paper, which he spreads out on the coffee table.

They’re reports, and James seems to have played slightly fast and loose with them. There’s red ink all over them, with various sentences circled and underlined; Sirius leans forward to take a closer look and sees immediately that the most attention has been paid to locations.

“This is a report from about two months ago,” James explains, indicating one of the lengthier documents. “You can look for yourselves. It’s very precise about times and locations. Hell, at one point he includes map coordinates for a building that has a street address. And then suddenly, a few weeks later - nothing. Not even street addresses, in a lot of cases.”

“I mean… maybe he got told to tone it down?” says Lily, but she sounds extremely dubious. Remus nods, but he’s chewing his lip, and Peter’s eyes are wide as he scans the documents in front of him. 

“That did occur to me - I mean, I thought maybe the newer material was too sensitive for so much detail to be included, or something. But then I looked more closely, and I realized something else - and this is the bit I meant when I said that I found something ‘really weird’. Some of the dates and locations and other stuff like that just don’t line up. He makes references to follow-up meetings and stakeouts that don’t exist in the system, he cites the same meeting as happening in several different locations - once or twice even within the same report - and he even omits locations completely in some places. I think he’d under the Imperius Curse.” 

The room is silent for a few long moments after James’s pronouncement. Everyone looks deep in thought. Remus gets up from where he’s sitting next to Lily so he can look more closely at the papers. Sirius, meanwhile, is trying his best to think back over all the interactions he’s had with Breckenridge over the past few months. There haven’t been too many, because Breckenridge is a total stick in the mud and Sirius tries to avoid him as much as possible, so it’s kind of tricky to tell off the top of his head if he’s been acting different or strange lately.

“What makes you think he’s under the Imperius Curse? Maybe he’s just turned or something,” says Peter. 

“Three reasons. One, the change was so sudden. Two, from what I’ve observed since I noticed, he does seem to be acting slightly spacey. Three - and this is the big one - he’s a smart guy. If he’d decided to join the Death Eaters, I think he’d be doing a better job of covering it up - at least keeping all his reports consistent, if not also including false details to keep his paperwork as thorough-looking as usual. To me it seems more like he’s being told exactly what to write.” 

He ticks his reasons off on his fingers as he goes through them, and Peter seems satisfied with his explanation. But Sirius still has questions. He pours himself another generous helping of Firewhiskey before he asks his biggest one. 

“So why don’t you want to go to Gorham with this?”

James hesitates for a moment. “Well… see, it’s not that I don’t _want_ to go to Gorham… I’m just not sure I _should._ For one thing, I’m just a rookie and Breckenridge is a senior Auror, I don’t know if it’s the best idea to publicly accuse him with so little proof. And, I mean, it might be an issue of safety - like, what if there are other Imperiused or otherwise dirty Aurors and they find out that I uncovered Gorham? What if word got back to the Death Eaters that I’d lost them one of their most strategically-placed assets?”

“You could become a target,” Sirius nods, seeing his point instantly. “But that’s definitely not a sure thing. There’s a good chance that leaving a compromised agent in the field would be more dangerous than launching an investigation into him.”

“But then there’s my other problem with the whole thing - an investigation will take forever, and they might not even pull him from active duty while they’re doing it. It would be a lot more efficient if the Order dealt with it.”

“I dunno, James,” Remus says quietly. “It doesn’t seem like there’s a clear-cut solution here. I think you should take it to Dumbledore and see what he thinks.”

“I agree with Remus,” Lily chimes in. “I mean, my instinct is that you should tell Gorham, but I think Dumbledore should know either way.”

Sirius considers it for a few minutes longer, but concurs. “Tell Dumbledore. It probably wouldn’t hurt.”

The subject dies after that, and the five of them chat about lighter subjects - and drink quite copiously - for a few hours before they all decide to call it a night. They say goodbye to James and Lily at their front door and head out into the chilly night.

James and Lily’s flat isn’t too far from Remus and Sirius's own; they could probably walk home if they were so inclined. But it’s late and cold and they’re both drunk, so they just Apparate, Remus taking Sirius along with him. When they land in the alley next to their building, they both miraculously manage not to puke, although Sirius, who’s a bit tipsier than Remus, has to lean against the wall for a few minutes until the world has stopped spinning quite so much.

Finally, he manages to straighten up, but he only takes a few steps before he’s stopped in his tracks by Remus’s voice.

“Can I ask you something?”

He instantly tenses, and there’s a long moment where he wavers between turning to face his boyfriend and just silently walking away.

“About what James told us,” Remus clarifies before he can make a decision, and he relaxes again, although he remains slightly wary - and he doesn’t turn around. “Just... why do you want him to tell Gorham? I mean, do you? It seemed like you did. I thought you’d be all for dealing with it through the Order.” 

It takes Sirius a few minutes to formulate an answer; he’s not quite sure how to put his feelings on the matter into words, and it doesn’t help that he’s not sober. Remus waits patiently, not moving behind him - giving him space, and finally he figures out what to say. 

“The Auror’s office drives me mad,” he says, trying not to slur his words. “With the bureaucracy and the limited resources, sometimes it feels bloody impossible to get anything done. And sometimes it’s faster to just take it to the Order so Dumbledore can figure out what to do. But the Order has even more limited resources, and less access. I don’t think the office’ll be all that efficient in dealing with Breckenridge, but I don’t really think the Order would be much better.”

“Makes sense,” Remus says quietly. “Lots more sense than you suddenly being a big fan of the Ministry of Magic bureaucracy.”

Sirius snorts. “Never.”

“I know.” Remus lets out a soft chuckle, and finally walks forward. “Let’s get home now, yeah? We probably shouldn’t be hanging around out here in the open. Come on.” 

He goes to put his hand on the small of Sirius’s back, but Sirius steps away at the last moment, his stomach lurching uncomfortably. He doesn’t think he can handle it, all the couple-y shit, not after the tension of the last few days. Not when he’s still afraid that Remus is going to confront him about Regulus any second, and not let it go this. He feels guilty for it when he sees the hurt flash across Remus’s face, but he doesn’t step closer and he doesn’t apologize, and the two of them walk the rest of the way home in silence.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For almost a week, there are no new developments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It shouldn't be too long," I said. "I'm hoping to update before New Years," I said.
> 
> -_________-
> 
> So.... yeah. This is extremely belated. But if anyone's still reading this, I hope you enjoy this chapter! <3

For almost a week, there are no new developments. Sirius spends his weekend trying to figure out how to get Viola's source, but doesn't make much progress. All he has is a handful of dates and locations.

 

There has to be a pattern somewhere. He's just not really sure what it is, or where it is, for that matter.

 

The source seems to go a few months between each meeting, but that's not really all that unusual. What is unusual is that, though the meetings only date back about two years, for each of those two years there is a meeting in early July and a meeting in late December. All the other meetings are much shorter and scattered across almost every other month on the calendar, except for June, August, and September. It's all kind of confusing.

 

That is, until he pulls out some calendars and actually starts marking the dates down.

 

He's at work when it finally clicks into place, and he barely stops himself from loudly exclaiming in victory. He snatches his list of dates off his desk and storms into James's cubicle.

 

"They're all weekends!" he hisses, putting the list down forcefully on James's desk and causing James to jump comically. "That's the pattern. She only meets the source on weekends."

 

"She - what? What are you talking about?" With one hand, James pulls the parchment towards him, while he pushes his glasses up his nose with the other. He takes a few moments to scan the list before his face drops, and he turns to Sirius wearing an expression that's rather accusatory.

 

"You're looking for Viola's source?"

 

"Yes," Sirius says impatiently. "You knew that."

 

"No I didn't."

 

Sirius is about to argue - but looking back, he quickly realizes that he actually can't remember telling James about his undertaking. He's certainly more or less actively hiding it from Remus.

 

"Did I not tell you?" he asks lightly, not waiting for an answer before plowing ahead. "Anyway, I think I've got it figured out. Well, not figured out, exactly, but I've got an idea where to look now."

 

James apparently understands that Sirius isn't going to drop this. He pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a sigh. "And where's that?"

 

"Hogwarts," Sirius says, and once again barrels ahead before James has a chance to get out any protests. "It all makes sense, the extra secrecy and everything. And they only meet on weekends - they must be Hogsmeade weekends. And-"

 

"Sirius," James cuts across him. "Mate. What? You're not really going to hunt down some kid for information, are you? You realize how mad that is, right?"

 

"I- what?" Sirius splutters. He can't help but feel caught off guard. Since when was James so... level-headed or mature or whatever? "Okay, first of all, I never said I was going to  _hunt down a kid_. I just want to talk to them -" (James groans and runs both his hands through his hair.) "-And  _second_  of all, we've done many, many things  _way_  more insane than that. If that were even my plan. Which I never said it was."

 

"You know I have nothing against insane plans. I don't love recklessly endangering teenagers' lives just so we can confirm information we already have."

 

For a long moment, Sirius just stares at him. He can feel his face getting hot as anger bubbles up inside him, and he bites down hard on his lip so as not to snap. James stares back at him, but his stern expression falters when he notices how upset Sirius actually looks. With a sigh, he slumps into his chair.

 

"Listen, Padfoot. I get it, okay? I get why you want to talk to the source yourself. I just don't think you're thinking clearly right now. How are you going to figure out who this kid is and then talk to them without marking them as That Kid Who Talks To Aurors? We know for a fact that there are Hogwarts students who're practically Death Eaters already and are just counting down to graduation. If you're right, and it's a Hogwarts student, Viola's being cautious for a good reason."

 

Merlin, he hates that James is right.

 

"Okay, okay," he grumbles. "I see your point."

 

"Alright, good." James is still eying him warily, like he thinks he's going to try to Apparate to Hogwarts as they speak. "So you're going to drop it?"

 

"No, I'm going to talk to Dumbledore."

 

He only gets a brief glimpse of the disbelieving look on James's face before he turns and walks out of the cubicle.

 

***

 

With all the recently-graduated Hogwarts students popping up in the Death Eaters' ranks lately, it's not that difficult to find a pretext for visiting Dumbledore. Sirius simply picks one of the recruits that he knows has younger siblings still at school, and tells his supervisor that he wants to get Dumbledore to keep an eye on them.

 

Natalie is a sweet woman, who refuses to be called Auror Perkins and who sometimes sneaks her cat into the office with her by hiding it in her robes, but she is far from an idiot, and she's certainly no pushover. She looks utterly unimpressed when he tells her that he wants to go see Dumbledore and why, and it takes a significant amount of wheedling and a fair amount of line-walking (yes, the matter is urgent enough that he can't just owl about it; no, it's not urgent enough that it should be passed off to someone more senior) before she finally relents and grants him access to a Hogwarts Floo.

 

Fifteen minutes later, he's standing in front of Dumbledore's desk, privately thanking Merlin that Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait is currently empty. The chair behind the desk, however, isn't; Professor Dumbledore is calmly surveying him over his half-moon spectacles, looking just as unsettling as always.

 

"Well, Sirius," he says, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

 

There is a brief moment wherein Sirius curses himself for not stopping to think of a plan before jumping into the Floo. Then he remembers that Dumbledore can see through anyone's bullshit from a mile away, and decides to just cut to the chase.

 

"I'm looking for a source," he says, sitting down in one of the chairs across from Dumbledore's desk. "I think they're a Hogwarts student. I need to talk to them."

 

Dumbledore just stares at him. Sirius tries and fails not to fidget, but he does manage to hold Dumbledore's gaze and resist the temptation to look away. There's no denying that he looks disapproving, but he hasn't said no yet, so Sirius sticks it out and just waits.

 

"I assume," Dumbledore says finally, steepling his fingers under his chin, "that this has something to with your brother's death."

 

"That's classified," Sirius says instantly, impressing himself with how smooth he sounds.

 

Dumbledore very clearly doesn't believe him, but he doesn't press the issue, just hums. "I'm afraid that I can't help you."

 

By can't, he means won't - there's not a lot that Dumbledore  _can't_  do. Sirius bites back a response of "Oh, bullshit" and just settles more comfortably in his chair.

 

"I know it's unorthodox," he says calmly. "But there'd be precautions taken and everything. I'm not asking for access to their dorm or something, I just want a meeting."

 

While his expression is still quite placid, Dumbledore isn't having it.  His eyes are turning rather frosty.

 

"If the Ministry of Magic wants access to my students, I'm afraid I'll need to speak with someone with a bit more authority than you, Sirius," he says, his voice clipped. "But we both know that won't be happening, don't we?"

 

"I can get one of my supervisors to-"

 

"Please do not insult my intelligence. This is about Regulus."

 

Sirius's jaw tightens, and his hands grip the armrests of his chair. So much for staying calm. "And what if it is? That still warrants an investigation."

 

"It does not warrant endangering one of my students. Frankly, I am not convinced that it warrants an investigation at all. I don't know what you're expecting to find, but it has been my experience that in these situations, answers rarely ease pain."

 

Dumbledore rises out of his chair, everything about his body language indicating that he is finished with the conversation. Every bone in Sirius's body is screaming at him to get up as well, to get in Dumbledore's face, to yell at him to  _stop looking at him like that_ ; but, somehow, he manages to stay in his chair, and he stares at Dumbledore as unwaveringly as he can stand to. He hopes to god he looks at least marginally calmer than he feels.

 

He has exactly one piece of leverage to use here. It's almost without thinking that he opens his mouth and uses it.

 

"I'll take the mission. Find the source for me, give me a few minutes with them, and I'll do as much undercover work as you like."

 

He refuses to acknowledge the flutter of panic in his chest. It'll be fine. He can deal with this promise later.

 

But Dumbledore's expression doesn't change in the slightest, and the panic is quickly replaced by a dreadful sinking feeling. He knows what Dumbledore is about to say.

 

"I cannot help you." Merlin, how does he manage to speak with such finality? "Now, if you will excuse me, I'm afraid I have other business to attend to. Good day, Sirius."

 

He gestures (with just as much finality) towards the fireplace, and Sirius understands himself to be irrevocably dismissed. He pushes himself out of the chair with shaking hands and goes over to the fireplace without another glance at Dumbledore. There's nothing left for him to pursue.

 

He's officially out of leads.

 

***

 

Sirius means to go back to work. He really, really does. It's just that he wants to take a moment to collect himself instead of Flooing right back into the office, and so he goes home first, and he paces around the living room, but rather than calming down he just gets angrier and angrier, and then it hits him - that there's one more place he might find answers.

 

And then, as usual, he acts without thinking.

 

Which is how he ends up standing on the cracked sidewalk outside Number 12 Grimmauld Place, staring up at the miserable old house that has just appeared from between numbers 11 and 13. It looks even worse than it did the last time he was here - when he'd left for what he'd thought would be the last time.

 

He pulls his wand out of his pocket and strides up to the front door; for a moment, it seems to quiver before him, as though it wants to reject him but can't. Whatever's been cast on the door isn't strong enough to keep him out. He can hear the locks on the other side of the wood groaning unwillingly as they slide open at his touch - but slide open they do. He unceremoniously slams the door shut behind him as he steps into the hallway.

 

The house is dead silent, which isn't really noteworthy - he'd always been the cause of most of the noise. What  _is_  noteworthy is the dust. It's everywhere, thick on every surface, suspended in the air as though frozen in time. His mother was never obsessively clean, but she certainly never used to allow the house to reach such a state. And his father had always cared more about the house than his mother had. For a moment, he wonders if they're even living here anymore - but the idea of the two of them abandoning so many Black family heirlooms is a lot harder to believe than the idea that Kreacher's just fallen behind on the housework.

 

His boots are heavy, the thin carpet doing nothing to muffle his footsteps; briefly, he considers casting a Muffliato to mask the groans and creaks before deciding he's not hiding. Tightening his grip on his wand, he heads for the stairs.

 

He intends to look for his parents without delay - to start with the sitting room, and then his father's office, and then maybe checking some bedrooms. Instead, he finds himself walking past all those rooms, following the stairs as though in a trance until he is standing in the fourth floor hallway, staring at Regulus's bedroom door.

 

It would probably make sense to go in, he reasons with himself as he stands there frozen. If he's conducting an investigation and everything. But he can't bring himself to turn the doorknob. His heart pounds in his chest. He doesn't know what he's expecting to find inside - a letter? A corpse? Regulus, glaring at him for ignoring the sign on his door -

 

He pushes the door aside.

 

The room's just as dusty as the rest of the house. Aside from that, it looks the same as always. Regulus was always way tidier than him, and his room was always spotless. His bed is made and everything. It takes Sirius all of about five minutes to conclude that there's nothing useful to be found amongst the small stack of papers on the desk; there's no notebooks or diaries in the drawers; he even checks under the bed. And when he's done with that, he finds himself sitting on the floor, staring into the space, all the air in the room seeming to press down onto his shoulders.

 

It's a while before he remembers his original intentions, and it seems to take all the his energy just to get up off the floor and walk back onto the landing.

 

"Right," he mutters to himself, running his hands through his hair and trying to collect his thoughts. "Sitting room, office, bedrooms..."

 

He ends up working backwards, combing briefly through the third floor bedrooms and checking the office. The office is in even worse shape than the rest of the house; the door creaks loudly when he pushes it open, and the room is covered not only in dust, but in cobwebs. It's empty though, so he continues down to the second floor.

 

The door to the sitting room is slightly ajar. His heart is now downright hammering. He pulls his wand slowly out of the pocket that he'd stashed it in, and cautiously pushes the door open.

 

And then he freezes.

 

His mother is sitting in one of the high-backed chairs near the window.

 

She is every image of a grieving parent. She sits slumped, despondent, her black dress hanging off her frame, staring out the window with unseeing eyes. She doesn't seem to realize she's not alone, and for a few moments, he considers keeping it that way - walking out, going home, leaving forever for real this time. But if he does that, he's completely out of leads, and he refuses to turn away until he knows.

 

"Hello mum," he says, as casually as possible.

 

Her eyes meander over to him, but her blank expression hardly shifts. If not for the way her mouth twists up, he would've thought she was looking right through him.

 

"What are  _you_  doing here?" She sounds far away, but her voice is tinged with disgust. She's already gone back to staring out the window.

 

"This'll probably come as a shock, all things considered, but I wanted to talk to you."

 

She doesn't respond, so he takes a few steps towards her. She tenses when he gets closer, and something inside him wants to laugh. How the tables have turned.

 

"Where's dad? Has he gone out or something? Do you know when he'll be home?"

 

She cackles loudly - it's a harsh, derisive sound, and pure instinct makes him take a step back and raise his wand higher. But her face is still almost eerily blank, and she does not move. She just closes her eyes, as though she can't stand to look at him.

 

"He died in January," she says thinly. "As you would know, if you hadn't abandoned your family."

 

There's a funny jolt in the pit of his stomach at that news, but it's quickly swept aside by anger. "Are you fucking joking? Abandoned? You burned me off the family tree! I was sixteen years old!"

 

"You abandoned us long before that."

 

Remarkably, he manages to stop himself telling her to shut up. He needs something from her that he's not going to get if he keeps being belligerent. So he takes in as deep a breath as he can manage and plows on.

 

"Is it true?" he asks. "About Regulus?"

 

The low, wounded moan she lets out seems to echo around the room, and she rocks forward in her chair, her overgrown fingernails digging into her chest. She still has her eyes closed, still won't look at him, and she doesn't seem to have any intention of answering his questions. He takes another step towards her and raises his voice. "Do you know what happened? Do you know who killed him?"

 

"The Dark Lord," she says, in a very strange voice, "doesn't take kindly to traitors. That's what they told me."

 

"So Voldemort killed him? Because he was trying to leave?" he presses. He doesn't care if that could be interpreted as a leading question; he's not conducting an official interrogation, after all. He just wants answers.

 

His mother hesitates for a long, long moment, and then she nods. And Sirius feels his stomach fall out, as the last shred of hope that Auror Viola's source was wrong, or that their information was bad, disappears in front of his eyes.

 

He takes a deep, shuddering breath and drops his wand hand to his side. Regulus is dead. And he's dead because he was trying to run.

 

"And - and that's all you know?" he manages, trying to regain some composure. "You don't know how he was killed, or-"

 

"What do you care?" Although her voice is still weak, it's clear his mother mustered up as much venom as possible for that comment. "What difference does it make to you that my son is lying dead Merlin knows where? Are you and your Ministry friends conducting an  _investigation_? Blood Traitor scum-"

 

For a second, he's eleven years old again, and home for Christmas, and Regulus is standing behind him in the doorway, pale and pinched as their mother rages about bloodlines and honour and how he is  _disgracing their family_ , and he is clutching at the Gryffindor scarf in his hands, trying to be as brave as he's apparently supposed to be -

 

"You're a piece of shit," he hears himself say. His whole body is shaking with anger. "You're a piece of shit, and you're going to die alone in this piece of shit old house, you miserable hag-"

 

The bolt of red light that hits him square in the chest probably shouldn't have taken him by surprise, and yet...

 

He goes flying backwards and hits the ground hard; his mother has leapt out of her seat and stands on the other side of the room, her face contorted into an animalistic expression of unadulterated loathing. She stands there, chest heaving and face going steadily redder, and Sirius suddenly realizes he has dropped his wand -

 

"You ungrateful, worthless child!" she shrieks. "How dare you come back here and say such things to me! You aren't even fit to lick my boots - Blood Traitor scum -"

 

His wand is a few feet away from his right hand. He's quite sure, though, that if he makes a move towards it, his mother will simply curse him again. Without taking his eyes off her, he gropes around as subtly as possible behind him until his fingers close around what feels like some kind of glass figurine - it must have fallen off of the coffee table when he hit the ground - and he whips it across the room at her without thinking twice. It smashes to pieces against the wall behind her, which distracts her long enough for him to roll over, grab his wand, and scramble to his feet.

 

"Back off," he pants out, but she fires another curse at him before he can even get both words out; he throws up a Shield Charm just in time.

 

"Cruc-" she starts, but then Sirius can't hold himself back anymore. Glaring, he sends a Stunning Spell at her that only narrowly misses her head, and quickly follows it with a Disarming Charm - which, to his satisfaction, hits her dead on. Her wand goes flying through the air towards him, and lands behind him somewhere with a clatter.

 

"I'm leaving," he tells her, his voice sounding dark and unfamiliar to his own ears. "I'm leaving. You won't ever have to deal with my filthy Blood Traitor presence again."

 

He recognizes her as his mother again, just for a moment - her face has gone cold and distant, although rage still lingers around the edges. It was always her default expression when she looked at him. He keeps his wand on her as he makes his way towards the doorway, and has almost reached it when she speaks again.

 

"I wish it had been you instead."

 

Fuck, he hates himself. He hates that that just made a lump appear in his throat. He doesn't have it in him to come up with some snappy retort. He just wants to get the fuck out of there.

 

Somehow, he manages not to run.

 

***

 

Once again, he goes home rather than going back to work. He feels like he's going to explode. He slams the door behind him when he walks into the apartment, and then he just stands there, breathing heavily, for a few long moments before turning and slamming his fist into the wall.

 

It's too fucking much. He feels like he's going to fucking explode, or fall to pieces, and it's getting harder and harder to breathe. His eyes are burning threateningly, and he presses the heels of his palms into them, trying as hard as he can to keep it together, because he can't help but feels like if he falls apart now, then...

 

"Sirius?" Remus calls from the other room, sounding wary. "Is that you?" And Sirius really didn't mean to scare him, wants to call out that it's just him, but instead he presses his lips together tightly, trying to stop their trembling, not trusting his voice.

 

Footsteps head toward him, and he presses his hands down harder, presses his lips together tighter, trying - trying one last time to pull it together, before Remus...

 

"Sirius...?" Remus's voice, now closer and full of alarm. And then his hands are softly touching Sirius's cheeks -

 

Sirius lets out a quiet, strangled sob.

 

Remus doesn't say anything more, just wraps his arms tightly around him, and Sirius, much to his horror, dissolves against Remus's shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hopefully you enjoyed this first chapter!


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